|
|
Friend and blogger Becky sent me an E-Mail which linked to Sam Seder's hosting on the Young Turks internet show. Sam Seder Show on Obama and the Demise of Air America.
In the first half, he interviews Chris Hayes of "The Nation" and in the second half he talks about the demise of Air America.
Sam highlights Chris' piecein "The Nation" called "System Failure".
Chris sees two problems. One is all our economic woes such as bad health care, carbon emissions poisoning the earth, lack of jobs, poverty, etc. The other problem is entrenched power and a broken system. But by trying to solve the economic problems through a corrupt system we further elevate the oligarchs and make the system even more entrenched than before. Sam is discouraged by Obama's capitulation to the oligarchs. He's really dismayed that Obama is not even rhetorically talking populist. He is dismayed that Obama is not even considering using the power of the grass roots anger on the left. And so all that energy and anger has been ceded to the right and to the tea party people. And that is frightening to Sam because if all the anti-establishment anti-oligarch energy is in the right, it can lead to more nativisim and racism, not less. It is the opposite of what he hoped for by voting for Obama. He had not been an early supporter of Obama because Obama wasn't liberal enough for him. But he thought that an Obama presidency might deal a death blow to the Southern Strategy of Nixon's i.e. using racism to divide working people. Instead it looks like that this ugliness may be getting a second life because the great populist left moment should have happened eight months ago.
Chris Hayes is discouraged too. Chris mentions that Obama in the State of the Union said, "I'm not interested in punishing the banks." But Chris said, "I'm interested in punishing them." And Sam said that he was discouraged that Obama not only won't punish the banks, he won't even talk about it.
Sam adds that we must all read Chris' piece. At the end of the piece, Chris tells a parable in order to show why any of us leftists should keep on fighting. The parable is from a book called "Political Parties", written in 1911 by social democrat Robert Michels. He had come up with "the iron law of oligarchy".
In order for any kind of party or, indeed, any institution with a democratic base to exist, it must have an organization that delegates tasks. As this bureaucratic structure develops, it invests a small group of people with enough power that they can then subvert the very mechanisms by which they can be held to account: the party press, party conventions and delegate votes. "It is organization which gives birth tothe domination of the elected over the electors," he wrote, "of the mandataries over the mandators, of the delegates over the delegators.Who says organization, says oligarchy."
So if either a left or a right organization will always succumb to oligarchy, why bother? Michels, in order to cheer up his fellow social democrats, tells the parable of the dying peasant.
In it, a dying peasant tells his sons that he has buried atreasure in their fields. "After the old man's death the sons dig everywhere in order to discover the treasure. They do not find it. Buttheir indefatigable labor improves the soil and secures for them a comparative well-being." "The treasure in the fable may well symbolize democracy," Michels wrote."Democracy is a treasure which no one will ever discover by deliberate search. But in continuing our search, in laboring indefatigably todiscover the undiscoverable, we shall perform a work which will have fertile results in the democratic sense." So the thing that keeps Chris Hayes going is that the left always always no matter where or when..."The left is always fighting the powers that be, always trying to make the hardest changes, speaking for the most marginalized, and it's never easy work and the odds are always stacked against you." Chris said he didn't want to wax philosophical but he concluded, "You have to almost have a spiritual commitment to it." The opposite of despair is not HOPE, it is action. So keep digging.   |
|
|
|
|
|
On a diary over at firedoglake.com "Baptists Charged in Haiti & My Talk with Laura Silsby's Employee"
one of the commenters asks us to question how we treat our poor people here in the U.S. What is the difference between taking children from people because they are poor and putting them in "good
homes" with "good people".
I come to the same conclusion every time I hear a story like the so-called Christians kidnapping Haitian children and children here living in poverty being placed in foster care. Why ...
|
|
|
|
|
|
Blogger Willy Loman aka Scott Creighton had a very interesting diary over at his site and cross posted on Firedoglake.com on Friday, Januay 29, 2010. "Obama's $8 Billion Dollar NAFTA Upgrade."
Seems like we the taxpayers should read the fine print of Obama's proposal to upgrade our rail system by developing high speed rail. Willy Loman points out that from the AP news story we get this little nugget “… they expect much of the expertise and equipment to be supplied by foreign companies.”
OK, so foreign companies will supply the equipment and Americans will supply the slave labor and taxpayer money to upgrade private companies' property. We help shipping companies increase their profits without the benefit of permanent high paying jobs. Willy Loman's example is priceless:
Imagine owning a small cabinet shop and you want to expand to abigger building and buy all new equipment. You have to factor in howlong it will take to pay back the loans for the expansion while stillgenerating enough revenues to keep the doors open, not to mention alittle profit to feed your family with (that is if you could get asmall business loan from the banks who created this recession, whichyou can’t). Now imagine that you have a sleazy friend who runs a nursing homeand he’s going to extort all the money you need to complete yourupgrade from his residents straight from their Social Security checkssince they are directly deposited to him. No loans, no repayment, allthe equipment purchased will be yours… and best of all,you’ll be able to charge those same elderly residents for theservices you provide them in the future with equipment they unwittinglypaid for.
That would be a pretty sweet deal wouldn’t It? Especially inthe middle of the worst economic recession in 60 years. Well, that isthe deal the shipping industry is getting.
Loman/Creighton explains that this is not an "Eisenhower type highway bill". It is politely called "Public/Private Partnership", another feel good phrase meant to soothe the American citizens aka simmering frogs in the increasingly hot pot. But it is yet another example that we are experiencing what Naomi Klein calls "The Shock Doctrine" whose three principles are deregulation of business, privatization of all public entities from power to water to parks to health care to natural resources, and then the dismantling of any social services. Does this look like shock therapy is just being used on foreign countries like Chile and Russia? Or can we clearly see that it has been happening here for 30 years and now is being put into high gear by this administration? After Notes: And wasn't it "smart" of Warren Buffett to buy Burlington Northern. Make sure you check out the logo for the Dept of Transportation at Willy Loman's site. "Attention must be paid" is a line from Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" uttered by Willy Loman's wife Linda to her sons.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Yesterday the war of words heated up between Glenn Greenwald and Paul Krugman. The lennonist has a recommended diary over at firedoglake with links to Greenwald's important piece on propaganda.
Greenwald had used Jonathan Gruber as just one example of an expert being paid by the administration without disclosing that he was being paid when advocating certain health care policies. The White
House also would quote Gruber's models as more evidence that their "reforms" were on the right track. They also did not mention that Gruber was paid. Greenwald takes great pains to point out that
neither ...
|
|
|
|
|
|
Today We the People and Taxpayers were robbed of Time’s "Person ofthe Year". We, who saved America by saving the banks, got gypped. Wewho saved Chrysler and GM got kicked to the side of the road.
InsteadBen Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman was given that honor.
Today fairleft has a diary on what Senator Jeff Merkley says is hisreasons for NOT voting to reappoint Bernanke to another term asChairman of the Federal Reserve and the diary also has some
choicequotes by the economist Dean Baker on why we have fallen further downthe rabbit hole in having ...
|
|
|
|
|
|
Here’s a good article on “Online Journal” about what to call the health care initiative. I always found “Single Payer” not the greatest title.
In Praise of Senator Max Baucus by Mike Ferner.
House Bill 676 is expanded and improved Medicare for All. Ferner wants to call it AmericaPlan. Is that a good title?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Dean Baker has been writing for years that we should be shifting the tax burden from American workers' wages to unproductive enterprises like short term trading. See Dean Baker's "Taxing Financial Speculation: Shifting the Tax Burden from Wages to Wagers".
Ellen Hodgson Brown quotes Baker in her great book "Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System And How We Can Break Free".
Insofar as possible, taxes should be shifted away from productive activity and onto unproductive activity. In recognition of this basic economic principle, ...
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Earl of Huffington had a diary on firedoglake about the NY Times columnist David Brooks' latest conservative propaganda aka bunk. In the column Brooks waxes poetic about his emotional teacher, Prof. Bruce Springsteen. The Other Education of Bobo Brooks
He claims his second education began after college while listening to Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band on a lonely night in Philly.
But could it be that his mother was a Mary Kay cosmetics saleswoman who won a pink Cadillac? Influenced by The Boss, Bobo dreamed of stealing it and driving away from the suburban hell hole he lived in. Driving fast through the night to rid himself of the stink of cheap lotions by indulging in cheap thrills.
Or did Bobo embrace the Mary Kay experience that preached "emotional leadership is fundamental to leadership success" (From "More Than a Pink Cadillac" by Jim Underwood). Armed with the "we are elected to serve others and find great satisfaction in giving" Mary Kay philosophy, Bobo got into the U of Chicago. He arrived in his mother's pink Cadillac. It was here where he thought he would meet other true believers in the American entrepreneurial spirit. "God didn't have time to make a nobody --only a somebody," Mary Kay said. And when asked "How are you?", you always answer "Great!" His mother's mission had been to enrich women's lives. Bobo would now enrich men and women's lives. He would learn at U of Chicago that there were really a chosen few whose mission it was to bring the message of the free market to all mankind for this enrichment. And although there were no nobodys, there was a hierarchy of somebodys.
Brooks says in his article <blockquote>In fact, we all gather our own emotional faculty — artists, friends, family and teams. Each refines and develops the inner instrument with a million strings.</blockquote>
I submit this as evidence that Brooks was heavily influenced by Mary Kay before he heard The Boss' song. And I submit that rather than a million strings, his inner instrument has one dull chord. And that chord is the same old dreary conservative talking point that it's all about individual responsibility and private suffering or pride. It can never never never be about the anger and helplessness of people caught in the web of debt and the bullying of authoritarian feudal multi-national lords. It can never really be a million strings or any kind of collective power because that would be a sacrilege in this phony religion of Friedmanism.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| There was a big difference in guests on Tuesday, November 24 between
Dylan Rattigan’s show and Amy Goodman’s. I like Dylan, but
he pays too much attention to politicians. He had on some young insipid
women named Crystal running for office as a Democrat. “Our generation
believes in efficacy. Our parents believed in idealism…Our parents
started out idealists and ended up cynical. We started out cynical and
are becoming more hopeful.” Bleeeckkkkk! Urp! Barf bag please. She sure
sounds like a politician though. Reminded my of Tracy Flick in the
brilliant movie “Election”. It was very disheartening. New generation
of politicians same as the old generation no matter what Crystal
thinks.
So sadly I turned the channel and turned on Amy Goodman and one of
the 43 students arrested and one of the leaders was a young woman not
much younger than our Crystal. What did she talk about? Specifics,
Crystal. Something we actually call efficacy. Berkeley Protesters on Democracy Now
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT 4: The demands that we have today,
right now, are that we receive amnesty, those of us that had been
acting and having demonstrations across the UC system. We’re also
asking that the Bear’s Lair, which is the only immigrant owned business
on campus, get a fair contract. We also are asking that one of the
housing, the apartments that is affordable housing for students here,
Rochdale Hall, remains as it always has been for a $1 a year lease to
the student’s coop. And we’re also asking that the 38 workers, AFSCME
workers, are rehired here on the campus.
Crystal would look sadly at this young woman and fault her for that
awful idealist stuff like seeking social justice for her peers and for
the unemployed. How naive. Doesn’t she know that she will never get
near the seats of power that way, let alone get on the Morning Meeting.
But unidentified woman also passed the good looking test if that’s
what it takes to get on MSNBC. So write to Dylan and see if he’ll have
on a person who is seeking to change her world with a good heart and
brave action. She is the opposite of what Glenn Greenwald recently pointed out when he said that we have a young group of consultants, technocrats without a developed sense of empathy..."who give advice but don't advocate or push a cause." Yes the mushy middle of the roaders who go along to get along and call themselves "Third Way". OY! |
|
|
|
|
|
Okay, I don't want to become a Celinda Lake and George Lakoff of the far left, but Naomi Klein has it right in her piece in Rolling Stone about the developing countries needing some justice for the
primarily industrial Northern Hemisphere skunking up the planet. Climate change is so soft and squishy compared to "climate justice" and "climate rage".
Climate Rage
Among the smartest and most promising — not to mentioncontroversial — proposals is "climate debt," the idea thatrich countries should pay reparations to poor countries for theclimate
...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
